Wednesday Newsbytes: New Link Preview Coming to Chrome; Microsoft Shelves File Explorer Downgrade; New Windows Feature Adds Phishing Protection; Changing Edge Settings Will Be “Insanely” Easy: Tech Giants Agree to AI Safeguards … and more!
Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology. Every Wednesday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Wednesday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
Google Chrome to offer ‘Link Previews’ when hovering over links
Google is set to improve Chrome by introducing a new “Link Preview” feature. This feature, currently in development for desktop use, could significantly change how users interact with web content.
Link Preview allows users to view a small popup web page preview simply by clicking or hovering over a hyperlink.
This preview provides users a glimpse of the content on the linked page, allowing them to decide whether to fully open the page or continue their current browsing. Not only does this save time, but it also optimizes data usage by preventing the unnecessary loading of undesired content.
Among the options outlined in the development documents, users could open these previews in a new tab or in the Side panel, further augmenting the flexibility of their browsing experience.
One intriguing approach detailed by Google is the idea of “Ephemeral Window and Tabs”. Drawing inspiration from Chrome’s ephemeral tab feature for Android, this concept involves the introduction of an ephemeral/temporary window that holds multiple preview tabs within each standard tab.,,
Read more at Bleeping Computer.
Microsoft roll backs Windows 11’s controversial File Explorer ‘downgrade’
Microsoft recently started testing an updated version of File Explorer without several legacy features. The plan is to improve the interface of File Explorer and remove unused Windows 11 features to reduce clutter and improve performance.
File Explorer’s update aligns with Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to modernize it, but it has been criticised. As a result, Microsoft has reverted its decision, and it won’t kill off legacy features in Windows 11’s next update or any future release, at least for now. As per the original release notes, Microsoft planned to remove a range of old settings.
For example, the company planned to remove the ‘Hide Folder Merge conflict’. This toggle allowed you to enable or disable the “This destination already contains a folder named” warning dialog box from appearing. We generally run into the error when moving or copying a folder with a duplicate name.
Other features going away include ‘Always show icons, never thumbnails’, ‘Display file icon on thumbnails’, ‘Display file type information on Folder tips’, and even ‘Hide protected OS files’. The option to disable ‘Hide protected OS files’ allowed users to view certain hidden files or folders that allowed them to troubleshoot issues.
Microsoft said it would also remove ‘Show drive letters’, ‘Show popup description for Folder and Desktop items’, ‘Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color’, and ‘Use sharing wizard’.
While these settings were still accessible via registry keys, they would no longer appear in File Explorer’s folder options…
Windows 11 just got a big upgrade to protect you from phishing attacks — here’s how it works
Enable this new Windows 11 security feature to keep your Windows password safe
Falling victim to a phishing attack can be bad enough on its own, but hackers can take complete control of your PC if your Windows password falls into the wrong hands. This is why Microsoft is implementing a new phishing protection feature in Windows 11.
As reported by BleepingComputer, Microsoft is expanding Windows 11’s Enhanced Phishing Protection with a new feature that will warn users when they copy and paste their Windows password into both websites and documents.
The software giant first introduced its Enhanced Phishing protection feature back with the release of Windows 11 22H2, in order to protect users’ Windows credentials from being stolen by hackers. However, this security feature only warned users when they manually typed their Windows password into a document or a login page on a website.
While it’s highly recommended that you use one of the best password managers to securely store and autofill your passwords, many users still prefer to do things the old fashioned way by copying and pasting them from a list. Now though, Microsoft is adding copy and paste protection to its Windows Enhanced Phishing protection program.
How to enable Enhanced Phishing Protection in Windows 11
Once enabled, this updated security feature will show a prompt about the dangers of password reuse when Windows 11 users copy and paste their Windows passwords…
This new Microsoft Edge feature would make it INSANELY easy to adjust your browser settings
Edge users might soon be able to control browser settings using voice commands.
Artificial Intelligence will forever continue to unlock new impossibilities for its users, ultimately making work easier. As is the case with Microsoft’s AI copilot for the web, Bing Chat. Since its debut, the company has consistently pushed new updates and features to the tool to enhance its user experience.
Microsoft’s latest efforts include adding a visual search experience to Bing Chat, designed to let users conduct their searches using images instead of the conventional texts we are all used to. The company also recently started sending Bing Chat invites to Google Chrome users. This shows that the tool will soon be making its way to other browsers.
Microsoft is reportedly working towards making it easier for Edge users to adjust their browser settings. As spotted by Leopeva64 on Twitter, it’ll now be possible for users to control Microsoft Edge from the Bing Chat pane using voice commands. The well-known Edge expert further indicated that the feature works like Windows Copilot in Windows 11…
Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta other tech firms agree to AI safeguards set by White House
WASHINGTON — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other companies that are leading the development of artificial intelligence technology have agreed to meet a set of AI safeguards brokered by President Joe Biden’s administration.
The White House said Friday that it has secured voluntary commitments from seven U.S. companies meant to ensure their AI products are safe before they release them. Some of the commitments call for third-party oversight of the workings of commercial AI systems, though they don’t detail who will audit the technology or hold the companies accountable.
A surge of commercial investment in generative AI tools that can write convincingly human-like text and churn out new images and other media has brought public fascination as well as concern about their ability to trick people and spread disinformation, among other dangers.
The four tech giants, along with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and startups Anthropic and Inflection, have committed to security testing “carried out in part by independent experts” to guard against major risks, such as to biosecurity and cybersecurity, the White House said in a statement.
The companies have also committed to methods for reporting vulnerabilities to their systems and to using digital watermarking to help distinguish between real and AI-generated images known as deepfakes…
Has Windows 11 Copilot AI disappointed you so far? The AI could soon get supercharged
Copilot AI might be weak-sauce now – but its spiciest ingredients have just been spotted
Windows 11’s Copilot AI, which has only just entered testing, is still in a very barebones state, but a hint has been dropped that this could change soon, and the assistant should be getting considerably more extensive powers.
PhantomOfEarth, a Windows tester and regular leaker on Twitter, made the discovery that the new preview build 23506 of Windows 11 contains the first signs of Windows Copilot inbox plugins.
What does that mean? Windows Copilot is essentially the Bing AI integrated into the OS via a side panel, capable of all the things the chatbot can do when interacted with online. However, the key difference is the ability to get the AI assistant to do stuff with Windows 11, such as changing settings. Meaning you might ask to ‘help me focus’ and Copilot can turn on a bunch of options to do this in one sweeping move.
And seemingly much of that fiddling with settings will be implemented via these plugins. In this way, as Windows Latest (which spotted this) points out, Microsoft can avoid bloating Copilot and slowing the experience down. (You won’t necessarily need all the plugins, of course – you can pick and choose).
While none of these plugins highlighted on Twitter work yet – these are just the first signs of them turning up in Windows 11…
Thanks for reading this week’s Wednesday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. Darcy & TC
